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Musing about possible Treks, I thought about a fun way to combine exposition and character by having a ship with a skeleton crew deliver some officers to a remote outpost (replacing those who'll come back with them). When they arrive, a Lieutenant at the Outpost bursts out laughing, asking about the ship's class. Turns out this is the very last Galaxy-class cruiser ever made, on her very last voyage. One of the arriving officers feels indignant, that this other person doesn't give such an old, worthy vessel her due--setting up conflicts for the future. At the same time of course we'd now know the story is taking place about a century or so after TNG. Which goes to show geek trivia has its uses!

I agree with more Aliens and with thinking outside the box. One thing I would add, is that thinking outside the box shouldn't just necessarily mean putting unexpected people in familiar positions. It could also mean showing different positions entirely. There's no particular reason the show would have to revolve around the bridge crew or the senior officers. Depending on the setting, there's no particular reason that there would even have to be a bridge crew, per se. There are a lot of people in starfleet - aren't the ones who aren't 'chief' this or 'head of' that occassionally interesting, as well?

Not that I'm saying they shouldn't have any senior officers as main characters, but they could easily skew the mix a little in regards to Trek tradition. Let the helmsman or the CSO or the Doctor fade more to the background and bring up someone else to take their places as a main character.

The thing that has irked me with Star Trek is that each crew has their own interpretation of the same character. You need a leader who shoots first and asks questions later? Kirk/Riker/Archer/Nerys. You need a kid? Chekov/Crusher/Jake Sisko/Harry Kim/Mayweather. You need someone who can rattle off statistics? Spock/Data/Dax/Tuvok/T'Pol/Seven? Comic relief? Neelix/Quark/Barclay/Bones... the list goes on. The point is, how about someone just write some cool characters and let them do their thing? Not every grocery store has a manager/assistant manager/warehouse guy/checker/delivery driver. Why does every Trek series have to have a captain/first officer/doctor/science officer/engineer that need to be major characters?

__________________"In the course of my life, I have more than once been too ignorant to know that something was impossible before I did it anyway." -Maximus from the Codex Alera

There's no particular reason the show would have to revolve around the bridge crew or the senior officers.

There was the show Space Above and Beyond where the ship's commanding officer was a occasional seen recurring character. The main characters were mostly junior officers, with a mid level officer commanding them. While we did see the bridge a few times, we never "meet" the bridge crew.

It's a similar situation on the popular show NCIS, the senior official isn't in every episode, the "crew" is a four member investigation team.

The original idea for the West Wing was that the President would be a minor character.

A new Trek show could revolve around a investigative/away team of young crew members, supported by specialists aboard the ship. They would seen interacting with the ship's higher ranking officers only rarely.

Gotta say the "junior officers" idea strikes me as a good one. And would work on in a variety of settings--starship, space station, colony, etc.

I had this notion for a character, a half Vulcan/half Andorian. Partially because I rather like the idea of someone who looks like a blonde Vulcan with blue skin! But the more I thought on it, the more it seemed the strength of this idea is of someone who embodies a taboo. These two races have been historical enemies and in most ways seem total opposites. Even their homeworlds! One an arid desert, the other a frozen wasteland. One has no moon, the other IS a moon. But more than that, Andorians evidently have four genders. This person, this halfbreed, what gender might they be? Quite possibly something...unique. More, doesn't this mean this person must be the result of genetic engineering?

I suppose the idea of this character appeals to me because she (to pick an arbitrary gender designation--and with a note I want to see more female characters) can work as a magnet for prejudice. Not merely because she's the result of a defacto forbidden union--with Andorians and Vulcans both reacting to her poorly--but as the recipient of false expectations. People would see her behavior solely in terms of her heritage. If she remains calm in a crisis, it isn't because she's developed personal discipline it is because of her Vulcan blood. When she holds her own in a firefight, she's told "Must be the Andorian side!" A subtle but pervasive prejudice, one much more likely to show up among her fellow junior officers since they're less experienced. Yet ironically they're also the ones most likely to (eventually) see her as an individual through constant interaction.

To really work, of course, she needs full development as her own person. Not simply a collection of quirks or details, but a dynamic whole. I know someone who once insisted Honor Harrington (of the David Webber series) is a fully developed character because "she has that Treecat!" *rolls eyes* Although that character does seem to me to have gotten rounder over time--my image of her now is as a wild wolf in human form, but governed by a mighty intelligence and emotional bonds to the humans around her--she still isn't nearly as full as (for example) Esmay Suiza in Elizabeth Moon's Once A Hero. In terms of space opera television, I would point to Aeryn Sun or Chiana on Farscape, Starbuck on the new BSG or Ivanova on Babylon 5. Someone with that level of depth but as a very junior officer and with this baggage of subtle but pervasive prejudice surrounding her.

Even their homeworlds! One an arid desert, the other a frozen wasteland. One has no moon, the other IS a moon.

I favor the idea that Vulcan is also a moon, in orbit around a gas giant. This would nicely explain the view of the Vulcan sky in TMP. And it would explain how Spock (in ST: Eleven) could be close enough to witness the destruction of Vulcan, he was on another inhabitable moon in orbit of the same gas giant.

Even their homeworlds! One an arid desert, the other a frozen wasteland. One has no moon, the other IS a moon.

I favor the idea that Vulcan is also a moon, in orbit around a gas giant. This would nicely explain the view of the Vulcan sky in TMP. And it would explain how Spock (in ST: Eleven) could be close enough to witness the destruction of Vulcan, he was on another inhabitable moon in orbit of the same gas giant.

Even their homeworlds! One an arid desert, the other a frozen wasteland. One has no moon, the other IS a moon.

I favor the idea that Vulcan is also a moon, in orbit around a gas giant. This would nicely explain the view of the Vulcan sky in TMP.

It's not canon, but the Star Trek: Star Charts book simply has the moonless Vulcan locked in a close pirouette with a large sister planet (T'Khut) that does have a moon, with both being clearly visible from Vulcan on a clear afternoon.

It puts forth the idea that not all star systems are as neatly arranged as Sol, with planets and moons sometimes circling themselves (around a common center) as they orbit their suns.

__________________"Don't sweat the small stuff--it makes you small-minded..."

I had this notion for a character, a half Vulcan/half Andorian. Partially because I rather like the idea of someone who looks like a blonde Vulcan with blue skin! But the more I thought on it, the more it seemed the strength of this idea is of someone who embodies a taboo. These two races have been historical enemies and in most ways seem total opposites. Even their homeworlds! One an arid desert, the other a frozen wasteland. One has no moon, the other IS a moon. But more than that, Andorians evidently have four genders. This person, this halfbreed, what gender might they be? Quite possibly something...unique. More, doesn't this mean this person must be the result of genetic engineering?

I suppose the idea of this character appeals to me because she (to pick an arbitrary gender designation--and with a note I want to see more female characters) can work as a magnet for prejudice. Not merely because she's the result of a defacto forbidden union--with Andorians and Vulcans both reacting to her poorly--but as the recipient of false expectations. People would see her behavior solely in terms of her heritage. If she remains calm in a crisis, it isn't because she's developed personal discipline it is because of her Vulcan blood. When she holds her own in a firefight, she's told "Must be the Andorian side!" A subtle but pervasive prejudice, one much more likely to show up among her fellow junior officers since they're less experienced. Yet ironically they're also the ones most likely to (eventually) see her as an individual through constant interaction.

Isn't the concept of a character who is born with parents from two different planets, and is an outcast from both races because of this heritage, a bit cliche?

__________________
"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds

And I personally don't see how hiding a character's sexuality is "Exactly how it should be done" (emphasis added). It might be appropriate of course. But so might a character in a relationship, or one who flirts.

I mean that in the way that their sexuality shouldn't be used to identify them (such as when VOY was launched Janeway was the female Captain). A persons orientation is only a small part of what makes them who they are, it shouldn't be made into their defining characteristic--which could see them turn into a stereotypical "gay" character.

As a gay man, if the PTB even contemplated going in that direction I'd rather they left the character out rather than have a mincing queen being a bitch on the bridge.

Unless this character is in a relationship from the start do you not risk having 'the gay episode'? Where we discover, however well done, that the character is gay.

__________________
"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds

I had this notion for a character, a half Vulcan/half Andorian. Partially because I rather like the idea of someone who looks like a blonde Vulcan with blue skin! But the more I thought on it, the more it seemed the strength of this idea is of someone who embodies a taboo. These two races have been historical enemies and in most ways seem total opposites. Even their homeworlds! One an arid desert, the other a frozen wasteland. One has no moon, the other IS a moon. But more than that, Andorians evidently have four genders. This person, this halfbreed, what gender might they be? Quite possibly something...unique. More, doesn't this mean this person must be the result of genetic engineering?

I suppose the idea of this character appeals to me because she (to pick an arbitrary gender designation--and with a note I want to see more female characters) can work as a magnet for prejudice. Not merely because she's the result of a defacto forbidden union--with Andorians and Vulcans both reacting to her poorly--but as the recipient of false expectations. People would see her behavior solely in terms of her heritage. If she remains calm in a crisis, it isn't because she's developed personal discipline it is because of her Vulcan blood. When she holds her own in a firefight, she's told "Must be the Andorian side!" A subtle but pervasive prejudice, one much more likely to show up among her fellow junior officers since they're less experienced. Yet ironically they're also the ones most likely to (eventually) see her as an individual through constant interaction.

Isn't the concept of a character who is born with parents from two different planets, and is an outcast from both races because of this heritage, a bit cliche?

Can be, without a doubt. All depends upon the execution. God (and the Devil) is in the details. I was trying to describe someone pretty specific, dealing with issues that (for example) the character of Spock didn't really. He thought of himself as Vulcan, and reconciling what he considered his "Human" half with that. My hypothetical character faces a different challenge, not least in that she cannot "pass" for either Andorian or Vulcan.

To give an example of what I mean--both B'Elanna Torres and K'eylahr had the exact same heritage in the exact same universe at pretty much the same time. But they remained two completely different characters, with fundamentally individual stories despite their similarities--such as falling in love with a man of a parent's race and having a child by that person. Yet each was unique, and quite distinct from Spock or Commander Sela (to mention yet another half-breed, who also totally identified with just one side of her heritage).

Unless this character is in a relationship from the start do you not risk having 'the gay episode'? Where we discover, however well done, that the character is gay.

Wait a minute, how many times over the course of Star Trek have we had a episode that makes it crystal clear that this or that character is straight?

I've said this before, unless you come right out and make it clear to the audience that a character is in fact gay, they basically aren't gay. I'm not saying it has to be a sex scene, but it is going to be necessary to spell it out at some point (with actions or dialog), and the sooner the better.

We shouldn't find out two or three seasons after the character is first introduced that "oh, by the way they're gay."

We found out in less than a hour in the TNG pilot that Riker and Troi had a previous affair. Only a few minutes into the DS9 pilot we knew that Sisko's late spouse was female and it had been a heterosexual marriage.

First scene of the next series pilot, one of the main male characters exits his quarters into a busy corridor, he turn back towards the doorway where his male partner is now standing, they exchange a brief passionate kiss, the character then walks up the corridor.